Duration: 10 minutes-3 hours
Recommended Ages: Ages 12+, not recommended as an independent activity for children younger than 12
Description: Further your understanding of the Virginia Declaration of Rights by translating it into modern language.
In 1776 the American Revolution was starting to heat up. George Washington was already leading the Continental Army. Virginia and the other colonies in revolt decided to write constitutions to replace their old English governments.
A group of leading Virginians, including George Mason, met in Williamsburg to create the new government. Many thought Mason had one of the best minds at the gathering. The delegates asked Mason to work on a draft of a “declaration of rights.”
Mason wrote several pages of ideas about the ways government should work and what rights naturally belonged to the people. Mason used his understanding of history, law, and political theory. When he was done, others added their ideas. The final draft was voted on and approved by the delegates on June 12, 1776.
The Virginia Declaration of Rights includes 16 sections, called “articles.” Some of the document focuses on individual rights, such as the right to a trial by jury or the right to choose one’s religion.
Other parts are about the structure of the government. For example, the Virginia Declaration of Rights says that judges should be elected (rather than appointed) and that people should not hold government positions just because of who their parents are.
The Virginia Declaration of Rights also talks about the responsibilities of citizens. It says that government will be successful only if citizens have good character and live up to their values.
One of the most important ideas in the Virginia Declaration of Rights is that the purpose of government is to provide for the “common benefit,” not to make certain people wealthy or to provide them with special favors.
Discover for yourself what the document says. George Mason’s words are sometimes confusing to 21st-century readers, though. You might want to re-write the Virginia Declaration of Rights in modern language. Click on the links below to download Gunston Hall’s “Translate the Virginia Declaration of Rights Worksheets” and a glossary to help navigate the historic terminology.
Virginia Declaration of Rights Activity
In 1776, many American colonies were frustrated by Great Britain’s tyrannical rule. In response, colonies replaced legislatures approved by the British government with extralegal governing bodies. One of the most notable of these governments was the Virginia Convention, which met in Williamsburg, Virginia. While the Virginia Convention took many revolutionary actions, one of its most important was the establishment of a committee to write a constitution and a bill of rights for the now state of Virginia.
George Mason was the man in charge of this important and historic task. His notes on this project are considered the first draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Before finalization, the document went to the floor of the Virginia Convention where debates and amendments took place. For example, the committee added text prohibiting bills of attainder, meaning that citizens would be granted the right to a fair judicial process. The completed Virginia Declaration of Rights influenced the important American documents that came after it, such as the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
Materials in the Library of Virginia’s collections contain historical terms, phrases, and images that are offensive to modern readers. These include demeaning and dehumanizing references to race, ethnicity, and nationality; enslaved or free status; physical and mental ability; and gender and sexual orientation.
The Virginia Declaration of Rights was unanimously adopted by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776. The declaration was particularly influential on later state constitutions because it represented the first protection of individual human rights under state constitutions of the American revolutionary period. It also represented the shift from colonial charters to state constitutions, as the nation moved toward independence from Great Britain.
Mason and Madison were primary authors
George Mason was the primary author of the document. However, in 1787 Mason would attend the Constitutional Convention and then join the Anti-Federalist opponents of ratification of the Constitution because it did not, as he had proposed, contain a similar declaration. James Madison, who was just beginning his political career, also made a significant contribution to the Virginia Declaration, an experience that foreshadowed his later role in adoption of the First Amendment.
Declaration of Rights was similar to Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights
In language echoed later in the Declaration of Independence (it was drafted the next month by Thomas Jefferson), Section 1 of the Virginia Declaration proclaimed that all men “are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights,” including “the enjoyment of life and liberty” and property and that of “pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” Section 2 recognized that the people were the source of all power, and Section 3 proclaimed the right of the people to replace governments that did not meet these needs. Section 4 reflected the republican principle that no individual is entitled to power on the basis of hereditary, while Section 5 proclaimed the idea of separation of powers. Much of the rest of the Declaration of Rights outlined rights similar to those later incorporated into the U.S. Bill of Rights.
Rights similar to First Amendment rights
At least two of these rights are similar to those incorporated in the First Amendment. Section 12 proclaimed that “freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.” Although the Virginia Declaration does not contain a provision on freedom of speech, its provision for religious freedom is actually more extensive than those incorporated in the First Amendment. Section 16 of the declaration declares: “That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.”
Following contemporary usage, Mason had originally phrased this declaration in terms of “tolerance” for all, but, consistent with the teachings of John Witherspoon, the president of College of New Jersey (later Princeton) under whom he had studied, Madison insisted that religious practice was not a matter of majority grace but of natural rights. Madison’s phraseology is similar to that appearing later in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and in his “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments” defending the statute.
Bill of Rights is more forceful than Declaration of Rights
Although the content of the Virginia Declaration and the later U.S. Bill of Rights overlap in many ways, there are differences. Section 15 of the Virginia Declaration provides in fairly moralizing language that “no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” Most other provisions of the Virginia Declaration, like those of the similar state declarations that followed, were phrased in the precatory language of “oughts.” Madison appears to have constructed most provisions of the Bill of Rights—for example, the First Amendment provision stating that “Congress shall make no law”—more forcefully, so that courts could more readily protect individual rights by enforcing such provisions.
John Vile is a professor of political science and dean of the Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University. He is co-editor of the Encyclopedia of the First Amendment. This article was originally published in 2009.
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